


What The World Needs

by Imoshen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Arda unmade, M/M, Mention of Insanity, backstories, happy end, how to redeem the unredeemable?, mention of infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24462286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imoshen/pseuds/Imoshen
Summary: Sauron. Mairon. Arda unmade, and remade, and the healing the end of the world brings. Olórin always knew what to do and what to say to make a difference.
Relationships: Gandalf | Mithrandir/Sauron | Mairon, mention of Melkor/Mairon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	What The World Needs

The End comes, as all ends do, rather abrupt.

The restless, powerless spirit that was once called Sauron is not in the least prepared for it when blinding light surrounds him, and he flinches back as old, _old_ memories of an ice-cold, searing pain are stirred – but this light does not burn with its clarity. It is less the ice of that accursed star, more the warmth of a bright fire. Even if he still possessed the power to resist, Sauron will later not be able to say if he would have made the attempt.

Even beings created to be ageless and timeless have a sense of time, and he knows it is a long, long time indeed until there is anything but that warm brightness around him. At first, he does not understand what it is, having been without body and power for so long most things have lost their meaning. The knowledge that he is resting on something called a bed, not on the floor comes trickling into his mind. Right on its heels is the understanding that in order for him to be able to rest on anything, he needs to have a physical form again.

He is too tired to even feel a little excited about it, newly-discovered limbs so heavy they feel made from stone. His mind feels heavy as well, sluggish and hazy. It is easier not to think, and so that is what he does. He lies on the bed and stares up at what some old, forgotten instinct eventually tells him are not the stars he used to remember.

He is not alone anymore, he finds when his gaze drifts away from the stars. Sometimes, he looks away just to see if they will have changed if he looks back. (They never do, and yet they are new every time he looks back up at them.)

His visitor is unfamiliar and well-known to him at the same time. He draws in a breath and slowly lets it out again, staring at those bright blue eyes he _knows_ in a way he cannot quite explain. “Hello, Olórin.”

His voice may lack strength and emerge as a mere whisper, but his greeting still has a marked effect: his visitor sits up straighter – and smiles at him.

Considering everything he now recalls, that is not what he expected.

“Hello, Mairon.” The voice has changed, too – or maybe he is hearing it free from the burdens that life once brought to this Maia. He would flinch back from it if he could.

“Why call me that?”

“Because it is who you are, now.” Olórin gives him a gentle smile that, somehow, is not enraging. Maybe he is still too exhausted for rage. “You needed more time than most of us to recover. This is the first time you noticed I was here.”

The idea that he was watched and did not know is unsettling, stirring more ancient memories. That it was Olórin…

“Come to watch me in my defeat?” he asks, returning his gaze to the stars. Something other than memories stirs deep within him, and he refuses to acknowledge the tiny spark that dares hope Olórin did not come solely for that reason.

That spark brightens, stubborn and persistent, when the other Maia answers with a soft, “no, Mairon. When you are ready, I wish to help you walk into this new world.”

_That_ captures his interest in a way nothing else except the stars did in a long while. He even looks back at Olórin, who is still seated next to him – almost close enough to reach, a corner of his mind muses. “New world?”

Olórin nods. “Do you not recall Eru’s decree – that one day, the world would be unmade, and made anew?”

He does recall it. It had once been what he had been working for, yearning towards with a madman’s fervor – the unmaking of the world, in which _hehe_ would return. Now, that thought makes him nauseous. The idea is almost enough to incite him to try and move more than his eyes, so strong is the desire to curl into a protective ball. “How am I not ashes, then?”

Olórin gives him a look, and a smile – and he remembers. _A servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor_.

“We knew he would come for you with the first breach. It was simply a matter of being faster, of making sure you were out of his reach before then. Everything else – the world _was_ unmade and made anew.”

Olórin does not say more, but he also does not need to. He remembers enough now to understand what that must have meant for him – for the darkness, the corruption he eagerly embraced at first, and that later swallowed him whole. (He should have anticipated it. Nothing Melkor ever touched escaped hale, or whole. Why should he have been any different for having thrown himself whole-heartedly into the madness?) He is no longer surprised at his own weakness, not if Eru burned all that insanity, all that broken rage out of him. He wonders what is left, if there is anything at all that wasn’t touched by Melkor and tainted by his own hand. Olórin called him _Mairon_ again, but he is not yet sure if he can return to that name. He knows he cannot return to that life, pick up old tools of a trade long abandoned. Even the thought feels as if he attempted to squeeze himself into an ill-fitting shell.

“The world needs more than smiths,” Olórin says calmly, a little amusement in his voice. The sound cracks open a memory that was sealed away deep in his mind, and this time he does flinch.

Olórin said the same to him once before, a very long time ago – except back then he was not resting in a bed, and Olórin wasn’t seated next to him as a visitor. The memory wells up, fills his mind with the scent of young earth and fresh grass, no light except that of the stars overhead. That fresh grass was cool and soft beneath them, he remembers, and Olórin’s cloak was only covering them because they enjoyed the sensation of resting beneath it in each other’s arms. Back then he had laughed and silenced his companion with a kiss, and they had soon been distracted from discussing what the world needed.

Not too long after that, Melkor had made his first visit to the forges.

Mairon swallows, hard. This time, when he meets Olórin’s blue eyes, it takes a lot more courage than he thought he still had. “What might this new world need, then?” he asks softly. ‘ _What might **you** need_?’ is what he wants to ask but does not dare. He forfeited the right to ask such questions when he followed Melkor’s honeyed lies and gave himself over to his silken, poisonous touch.

Olórin’s smile holds a hint of sadness but lacks none of the warmth it held since Mairon first looked at him in this strange place. “The world needs many things, and not all of them are grand and mighty,” he says. “A guiding hand here and there, a kind word at the right moment… and someone who walks beside me on the long roads would not be amiss, either.”

Mairon looks at the hand the other Maia holds out just above his own, useless one, and remembers what he once saw of a grey wizard walking Middle-Earth – and later of the white wizard who shone against the darkness, kindling fire in his comrades wherever he went. “I think I might enjoy that,” he whispers.

Olórin's hand comes to rest on his own, and warmth spreads from where they touch. Mairon looks up at the new stars one last time. 

If the world can be remade, why not a broken Maia?

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from, but it demanded to be written. I hope you enjoyed it!


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